By Shaun McKenna
It was a time of flannel shirts and baggy jeans. Rock bands like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails played the soundtracks of our lives, and dance music was big at all-night parties called raves.
If these memories come flooding back crisp and clear to you, there’s a reason — those were the 1990s and they only ended a month ago.
The new year was barely a week old when Barrymore’s, a Bank Street concert venue, held its first retro ‘90s theme night.
The word “retro” is short for retrospect, and retro nights play a specific decade of music.
Those who showed up that Thursday came out of curiosity, wondering what music the past decade might be remembered for.
As each song played, the friends I arrived with recalled where and when they heard it for the first time. Pretty soon our nostalgia overcame us — we even started ending our stories with “those were the days.”
This leads to an interesting question: should we get nostalgic about things that haven’t really ended? I just turned 22 and I came out of Barrymore’s feeling like I was 55!
DJ Ellen Penner helped create the night. Penner, 31, says she tries to avoid playing songs released in the past few years.
“We try and err on the side of ‘95 or earlier,” says Penner.
A retro ‘90s theme night was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s the sooner that surprises most people. We shouldn’t be that surprised. After all, it seems like there was nothing but retro in the past decade.
The ‘60s enjoyed a brief resurgence in the early ‘90s, eventually leading to a major ‘70s revival. Do any of you remember choking on your cappuccinos when top designers told you to get the bell bottoms out of the attic?
After the ‘70s revival, the ‘80s slowly crept back into vogue. There’s no shortage of retro ’80s nights in Ottawa, and definitely no shortage of people who like them. Places like Barrymore’s and Babylon boast impressive crowds when featuring music from the past.
Even the original pop culture trends of the ‘90s drew on some sort of past movement. Grunge was an extension of punk, house music was an extension of disco, and hip hop promoted a return to old school methods used in the early ‘80s that emphasized beats and rhymes over commercial appeal.
Swing made a comeback, so did ‘70s glam rock. Designers even dipped into the 1800s for Victorian-influenced goth fashions.
You’d wonder whether we misunderstood the phrase reduce, reuse, and recycle. So how do we keep past trends from dominating the new century?
Even though recent pop culture tended to focus on the past, some new ideas were put forth. They were just a little less accessible. Most DJs admit they try to play new things, but Penner says people only like to dance to what they recognize.
My friends and I decided to make a collective new year’s resolution that night at Barrymore’s. We will discover something new. If we put our heads together, we’re bound to think of something eventually. That way we’ll have something to listen to next year, on retro-2000 club nights.